


Planting

by tap_rat



Series: (Forever) Unfinished Fic Ideas [3]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Minor Character Death, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 9,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23796889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tap_rat/pseuds/tap_rat
Summary: Desmond Miles reincarnates as a Hobbit.(See comments for extra content.)
Series: (Forever) Unfinished Fic Ideas [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714492
Comments: 234
Kudos: 281





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These chapters will intentionally be very, very short to encourage me into a more regular posting habit. I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew; I'm hoping this project will help.

Someone, I can't remember who, once mentioned that Desmond would make the most chill hobbit ever.

Most of my Desmond ideas have him reincarnating into a new version of his own body, but in past fandoms I have very commonly enjoyed writing my characters possessing or merging with others in different bodies. Even with Desmond, there's his Bleeding Effect, and also Blacklight re: Alex Mercer. And just plain reincarnating as Ezio, of course.

But this particular inspiration was about Bilbo Baggins.

Imagine that, for a moment. This Desmond would be from a world where J.R.R. Tolkien never wrote the world of the Lord of the Rings, including the Hobbit. Instead, he wrote an entirely different epic fantasy saga that still included dwarves and elves and goblins and dragons and wizards and other fairytale-inspired creations. Just... different versions of them. All those tropes would need to still exist in Desmond's world to spawn the Dungeon&Dragons tabletop gaming revolution, which directly _led_ to the existence of digital gaming as his generation knew it. Kind of important from a world-building perspective. It just wasn't _Middle Earth_ that he wrote of in Desmond's reality, that was all. And there were no Hobbits in his books.

So when Desmond woke up in the body of a newborn Hobbit fauntling, he had no idea what was going on. Other than the whole not dead reincarnation deal, that part was kind of obvious. But the not human part? That came out of the blue.


	2. Placing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond is very confused.

Desmond had never heard of Hobbits before.

It didn't take him long to realize the new body he had been reborn into wasn't human, even if they did look very similar. It wasn't until he learned their language that he figured out what they were properly called. That didn't actually help him any.

However, once his eyes could focus enough to make out the details of the very few illustrations in some of his father's thick, old books, Desmond pretty quickly linked the names of the other races his parents sometimes mentioned to races _he_ recognized. He didn't know crap about Hobbits even after knowing this language's word for them, but dwarves, elves, wizards, goblins, and _dragons_ were all very easily recognizable no matter what they were called. Honestly, he should have put it together from his parents descriptions, but who really expected that sort of thing? And judging from the way his parents mentioned them, they actually _existed_ here.

So. This was definitely not just a case of some... hidden race humanity had never found, that was also some centuries back in technological development. This was... significantly bigger than that.

What the heck was he supposed to do in some Sword&Sorcery world?


	3. Appetite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hobbits eat a lot.

If Desmond could be thankful for one thing at least, it was that the last three months of his previous life had prepared him surprisingly well for living without modern comforts. Not the kind of side effect a guy anticipates when deep-diving into his ancestors' memories, but he wasn't going to complain.

Honestly though, Hobbits were a lot more hygienic and better off than humans generally were at this level of technology. Desmond attributed it to both their ability to be incredibly down-to-earth practical when truly needed, and their flair when it came to managing renewable resources. They really were _ridiculously_ good at it.

In practically everything else they were kind of fussy little busybodies, and downright pampered whenever they could get away with it, but when it came to managing their land they were _hardcore_.

And holy shit could they eat. That was some kind of nonhuman thing going on right there, no question about it. It was physically impossible to fit that much food into a full-sized human stomach, much less a human stomach proportionally matched to a Hobbit's tiny size. Their organs had to work wildly different on the inside no matter how human they looked on the outside. He had no idea how he actually processed all the food he ate.

All of which made their incredibly strong cultural emphasis on food perfectly sensible. As a species the only reason they _could_ have survived, with that ridiculous appetite, was probably that equally fantastic skill at resource management; so it made sense that they were so good at it. They had to be.


	4. Education

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hobbits know a lot about plants.

As a reasonable person interested in the topics that kept him _alive_ , Desmond applied himself diligently to learning the Hobbit secrets of farming and husbandry and whatnot. Even if none of that had interested him in the least in his last life.

As a human, the field of study that had most helped him survive at first was probably social intelligence -- which the Farm had not prepared him for _nearly_ enough. He got a very rough crash course on that after he ran away. After that, of course he had to crown the general fighting skills of his Assassin ancestors as the runner up, though he hadn't really _learned_ those. He didn't think cheating by Animus should count.

Maybe it was his human mind still dominating his new body's Hobbit instincts, but he honestly didn't find the new topics of growing things and managing resources all that much more interesting in this life, either. He _did_ however, find them _easier_ , which felt weird.

Desmond remembered struggling in his survivalist lessons on the Farm as a kid, trying to remember how to identify which plants were poisonous and which would serve in a pinch in an emergency situation. He never had that trouble now.

He only needed to be introduced to a plant a couple of times before he could pick it out of a field easy with just a glance. What types of earth were good for growing what in which conditions when, the seasons and how to read them for planting and harvesting, and even reading the natural placement of plants for which went best together and reinforced each other and which didn't. It was all _easy_ and every bit of it stuck with hardly any effort at all.


	5. Specialization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond is a stubborn student.

His Hobbit teachers didn't much understand Desmond's interest in taking their lessons out of the practical use of the farms and fields and gardens and out into the wild forests instead. Not the carefully cultivated forest gardens either, mind you, where the plants and animals that needed forest conditions to flourish were kept. Desmond instead persisted on escaping into the actual, proper, _uncultivated_ wild, and they just didn't understand that at all.

Desmond's tutors kept trying to redirect his focus to more "useful and proper" pursuits, but he was far more stubborn than they were. Eventually they came to a compromise and let him have books on the topics he was interested in as long as he also paid proper attention to the lessons they wanted to teach. So in addition to all of the really quite impressive Hobbit agricultural knowledge, he was finally able to dive into their accumulated knowledge of everything else, as well.

Not that his parents and tutors _only_ wanted to teach him agriculture, of course -- it just sometimes seemed that way from his human point of view. They did of course teach him the basics of writing and math, geography and history, etc. And _man_ was the history of this world wild. But compared to the more rounded and thorough curriculum he had gotten on the Farm, even as skewed as that had been, this really was incredibly heavily weighted on the agriculture and animal husbandry and just... renewable resource management, in general.

Any sort of renewable resource that a Hobbit could get, basically, and the more edible the better, became their bread and butter _literally_. They focused a _lot_ of attention on learning how to manage it so as to keep themselves well fed. Mostly, being by far the best bang for the buck, that meant lots and lots of plants.


	6. Investigation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond is frustrated.

Desmond sought out every bit of knowledge he could get his hands on, read everything available to him of what the Hobbits knew about the rest of the world. In comparison to the sheer _depth_ of their expertise in not starving, though, it just wasn't all that much.

After he started bargaining with his advanced tutors for access to books outside of their curriculum for his independent study he got more, but it was still nowhere near what he would have liked. The fruits of those deals were generally things like Bounder manuals and forgotten old family tomes with names like Took and Brandybuck on the cover, and while much more interesting than the usual tedium of his lessons, they were still... limited.

They didn't have any actual family secrets in them, of course; no bargaining would be able to get that sort of thing. They did, however, have a great deal of the same sort of practical knowledge of the land hobbits had acquired for agriculture, but focused on the wild, instead. This was useful to him, no doubt, and he got _much_ better at sneaking around in nature due to it (which was no doubt why they weren't usually allowed to fauntlings), but still not what he had actually been looking for.

He wasn't even sure what he was looking for. An explanation, maybe. He couldn't really be surprised when he didn't find it.

Of course it wasn't _proper_ for a young faunt like him, firstborn son to a wealthy landed family like the Baggins, who would have been nobles of some type had they been human, to be so interested in the wilds like he was. But his mother was a Took, and his father was madly in love with her, for all his propriety. Eventually, when he was stubborn enough, Desmond was usually indulged.


	7. Wizard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gandalf likes poking at Hobbits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gandalf chapters exist solely because of comments by Imihel and PurpleMoon3.

With _his_ background and in _this_ world, it was actually pretty easy to believe his mother when she spoke of Gandalf as a real Wizard, and quite powerful despite his preferred manner. From Desmond's studies he knew the magic in this world tended to either epic and grand or subtle and easily missed, rather than visible everyday spells and potions. He wasn't even counting the inherent magics natural to the various races, as most of that was kept secret for obvious reasons. So he knew he wasn't likely to see much magic from the Wizard himself in Hobbiton of all places, and wasn't expecting it.

His mother spoke of the Wizard with an exasperated fondness that couldn't help but color Desmond's perception, though. He was her dear friend, however frustrating he could be at times, and she trusted him almost like family, with all the desire to occasionally bash a body over the head that implied. When Desmond finally met the guy, he could see right away what she meant.

Gandalf didn't come around the Shire often. Every few years he just popped up without warning to throw the whole of the Shire into a tizzy. Desmond honestly liked him for that, he could see the twinkle in the guy's eyes as he wound up the fussy little things. It was incredibly obvious he was doing it on purpose, but for some reason most Hobbits seemed to buy the "forgetful, eccentric old man" excuse. Well, the eccentric old man part was true.

Almost no Hobbits except the impressionable youth believed he could really do magic, and Desmond was pretty sure the Wizard played up his charlatan reputation just to needle the stodgy older Hobbits even more. Desmond actually found that part pretty funny. His fireworks were exquisite, though.


	8. Frustration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond is So. Frustrated.

Desmond was acutely aware of his very limited viewpoint of the world he now lived in, due in no small part to the self-contained lifestyle Hobbits preferred. He wouldn't be so hungry for new books otherwise. Coming from a world that took free and interconnected information so much for granted -- even if that was an illusion in the end -- Desmond found slamming into the blank, unmovable wall of the _lack_ of knowledge here almost like a physical pain. Or missing a limb.

And then there was Gandalf, who _wouldn't answer questions_.

He was even more stubborn than Desmond.

Desmond had _hoped_ that if anyone would have the answers to at least some of his questions, a Wizard of all people would. And to be fair, every now and then Gandalf did let slip something that Desmond was _almost_ sure wasn't bull -- unlike the other ninety-percent of what he said.

Seriously though, the man liked telling such tall tales, laughter hiding in his eyes the whole time as he puffed away at his pipe. Desmond's mother exasperatedly correcting some exaggerations she personally knew better of was how Desmond first learned just how much the Wizard "stretched the truth" for his stories. Thereafter he had to carefully pick through the blatant lies and hyperbole to find even the tiniest kernel of truth. It got tiring.

He was well used to being a Hobbit by the time he really started trying to hound the Wizard for answers, and Desmond sometimes wondered if that may have played a part in just how _infuriating_ he could find the guy. He could _see_ Gandalf's eyes laughing at him behind that frankly magnificent if poorly-kept beard as he spouted out the most egregiously obvious and pointlessly ridiculous lies. It made Desmond just want to _stab_ him. Which he could see the guy did not correctly interpret because Desmond was not that obvious thanks, so he probably just thought Desmond wanted to kick him in the shin or something. Which made his eyes laugh _more_. At which point Desmond had to go and calm down.

Seriously, fuck Wizards.


	9. Meditation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Babyhood is hard.

Desmond had begun meditating practically in the cradle, mostly just to keep himself sane. Thankfully Hobbits weren't as helpless for as long as humans were, but they still had a depressingly long helpless period. Desmond had set himself to forgetting it as soon as he could.

That was how he discovered that both his human genetic memories and the Eagle Vision that came with them weren't there.

Disappointment wasn't the right word for when Desmond had finally accepted that his human genetic memories were gone for good. Loss was closer, or maybe grief.

The Eagle Vision though, just... _sucked_. Desmond hadn't even known just how reliant he had gotten on that thing until it was gone. He had spent a long time stubbornly looking for the trick to activate the Eagle Sense in his new body, before he eventually had to acknowledge the fact that there was no Eagle Sense _to_ activate, anymore.

But Hobbits did have their own... abilities. It was during his stubborn search that he discovered that though he may have lost his _human_ extras, there were _Hobbit_ extras abilities still waiting to be found. If he could just figure out how to reach them.

They seemed to remain just beyond his sight, and he couldn't quite figure out how to push past that limit. It was immensely frustrating as a two year old. But it also gave him something to reach for and focus on, which was something he had needed.

He would eventually succeed, and learn that their version of a sixth sense wasn't even close to the Eagle Sense he was familiar with. But it was still definitely more than just plain standard five senses. As someone who had gone from the standard five to six and back again, he was _uniquely_ suited to judging this.

But that would come with its own issues.


	10. Sensory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond is not Daredevil.

Eventually Desmond did _finally_ breach the barrier into the Hobbit sixth sense. It wasn't like the Eagle Vision at all, in any way. It wasn't a sudden switch that flipped and then he could _see_. He couldn't turn it on and off like that.

He had to slowly, gradually learn how to feel his way into it. It was more of a gentle awareness of the air around him in a way he could _feel_ with his skin rather than _see_ with his eyes, and it wasn't something that switched on or off easily. It took a while to ease himself into it, and it took a while to wear off.

It also made his skin _hyper_ sensitive, and that also definitely took some getting used to.

He now wholeheartedly understood the Hobbit clothing preference for the softest and gentlest fabrics they could afford. If at all possible, a typical Hobbit would absolutely spend a huge chunk of their budget on their wardrobe with no shame whatsoever. Desmond was personally never going to wear anything but the softest fabrics he could get his hands on directly against his skin ever again. _Ever._ He did not care how expensive that would be. Anything else was fucking agony.

He fully sympathized with Daredevil about sensory issues now. He only _wished_ he could get silk sheets. Of course, he wasn't blind, and his sense of the world around him was nowhere _near_ as powerful as that guy's, but he couldn't stop himself from making comparisons anyway. Usually when he was tying on a blindfold and waving sticks around for training purposes, trying to pretend he looked cool instead of idiotic. The comparisons were never in his favor.


	11. Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hobbit feet are tough.

The one exception to Hobbit hypersensitivity was the feet. He had actually tried wrapping a kerchief around his feet once, when no one was looking, just to be contrary. He had never done that again.

It honestly did feel _wrong_ to be wearing anything at all around his lower calves and feet, and he wasn't sure why. It just did. Sure, the hair down there was honestly more akin to a pelt, and thicker the closer to the ground it got, but that really didn't explain it. Hobbits wore hats on their heads all the time with no trouble, and the hair up there was almost as thick, if not as pelt-like.

There was just something about Hobbit feet that did not like to be confined. Thankfully it wasn't necessary. The sole of the Hobbit foot really was just as thick and hardy as a normal shoe. Even when he was hypersensitized from using the hobbit sixth sense, he had no trouble at all withstanding the feel of the ground. And the thick leg and foot pelt was usually able to shield the rest of the skin there just fine.

Being without proper protective footwear did mean he had to take more care with how and where he ran than he had as a human, though. Having feet that were naturally equivalent to shoes still wasn't the same as actually wearing _boots_. There were some things a person just didn't want to tread on, both sharply dangerous and also simply disgusting.

Desmond slowly got himself used to keeping his Hobbit sixth sense up for longer and longer periods of time at least in part because it was damn helpful in naturally guiding his feet around the nastier, noisier, and more dangerously painful obstacles in his path without him even having to think about it. As he got used to using it and practiced flexing his mental muscles, his range extended.


	12. Training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hobbits are surprisingly sturdy.

Despite the extraordinarily peaceful existence of being a Hobbit, it wasn't like Desmond intended to let his Assassin training just go to waste.

Marrying his new sixth sense with his old Assassin training, without any of the muscle memory due to a completely new and differently shaped body -- that was an adventure. He had to experiment to figure out the best way to work with it. He made a _lot_ of mistakes.

Thankfully Hobbits were quite a bit hardier than he remembered standard humans being back in his old world, so he just picked himself up and tried again. Maybe his new body wasn't quite as sturdy as his old human-Isu _hybrid_ body had been, but it was at least still hardier than pure human.

(Shaun had made a special powerpoint presentation chart and everything to mash in just how unfair Desmond's advantages as an Isu descendent really were and how much of his skills and abilities were practically cheating. As if Desmond hadn't already noticed how different he was over the nine years learning how to lay low and blend in out in the real world by himself.)

So if he kept falling out of trees because all his free-running moves were built for a longer reach, then at least his body was hardy enough to not break like glass while he was doing it. Eventually he figured it out. He had to rework almost all his fighting forms to fit this tiny body, work the old moves around and into the shorter limbs and different reflexes, but he did it. There were only a few broken bones, and none of them were that bad. Everything was honestly going pretty damn well.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much a pint-sized Assassin could do against winter.


	13. Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Losing people is hard.

Desmond managed to kill quite a few of the invading wolves, roaming significantly further than his regular check ups with the neighbors actually required. His parents didn’t catch on because both of them had long since given up on curbing his independent wandering by then. Even the worst winter in living memory wasn’t going to stop him, and they knew it.

By that same token, though, he couldn’t keep _them_ confined safe inside the smial either. He made damn sure to accompany them whenever they ventured out, but it wore on him having to watch out for the wolves and his parents without _looking_ like he was. But the snow just kept piling thicker and deeper and colder, and eventually they _all_ left less and less.

It figured that on what his mother promised would be one of the last visits of the winter, his little family finally did get attacked.

Desmond was able to fight the wolves off, barely, though his mother still got bitten. She healed well enough once they got back home, but that didn’t help with the fact that his parents had both seen him _fight_. It made for a very, very tense month as their food stores continued to dwindle down while the snow _continued_ to pile up outside.

And then his father Bungo had gotten sick, because the idiot had _also_ gotten a scratch from those damn wolves. He just hadn’t wanted to make a fuss while his wife Belladonna had been healing from a much more dangerous bite wound. And so his own had gotten infected.

By the time spring finally came, Desmond had learned a great deal more than he ever wanted to about how Hobbits dealt with death and illness and mourning and loss.


	14. Legalities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death comes with paperwork.

It turned out Hobbits could die from a broken heart, and much more quickly and dramatically than humans. Desmond had only come across books on Elves that had referenced it, calling it Fading. He hadn't realized Hobbits did that too.

There were occasionally silent, significant looks passed around the gossip huddles for certain funerals, but he hadn't connected that to Fading. He hadn't been that interested in eavesdropping on those conversations in the first place, and they certainly never _said_ anything that caught his attention. But then, as he was learning, so very much about Hobbits went unsaid.

This was not how he wanted to be confronted with that realization.

He nearly lost the smial in the legal aftermath, still too young on top of being known as "wild, uncouth, and improper."

Desmond had spent his youth so far doing very much his own thing, this was true, and very little of that was what a young Hobbit of his station was _supposed_ to do. But there were none who actually knew him who could _honestly_ call him incapable or unintelligent, even if he usually only showed that in the topics he was interested in. Desmond could and did call up plenty of character references to prove that fact, regardless of anyone's opinion on his personal life. And the legal paperwork was of course solidly in his favor.

The Baggins side of Desmond's family lost their case, bitterly scowling and ungracious about it. No one with any sense really thought they had a chance, even with Desmond so very young, and there was quite a bit of twittering about the Shire over the loss of face. It was simply not _done_ to try what that particular branch of the normally very respectable Baggins had tried, and the greater Baggins clan was very embarrassed about them.

Desmond kept his parents' smial in The Hill, and all the lands and duties attached to it. It was a significant step up in responsibility, and he wished his father'd had more time to prepare him for this. The Took side of his family sent him sly congratulatory winks during their rare visits when they brought over helpful advice and things. They hadn't done much during the proceedings themselves, mostly letting him stand on his own to prove his right. But there had been sneaky nudges here and there to help point him in the right direction, which had saved some time.

In the end Desmond learned who to keep an eye on, and who was on his side. It was by far the better lesson, as far as he was concerned.


	15. Sensing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond pays more attention.

Desmond had figured out young that most Hobbits’ sixth sense weren’t anywhere near as potent as his. He honestly wasn’t sure if they were even consciously aware of it or not.

Then again, most Hobbits didn’t become fully self-aware _way_ too early the way he did either. Without the nearly constant meditation during the Diaper Years, he wasn’t sure he would still be sane. Having goals to reach for had also been a big part of that, to keep him moving forward. His stubborn personal quest to find and hone his sixth sense had been his main motivation for a good chunk of his toddlerhood.

Take away all of that, and rationally, it only made sense that other Hobbits couldn’t do what he did. They still _had_ the same sixth sense, he was sure of that, but it was an entire magnitude weaker. Of course, they also didn’t have the same vulnerability to over-stimulation he did, either. By preference a Hobbit would almost always go for as soft a fabric as they could, as long as it wouldn’t suffer for their occupation or lifestyle, but they didn’t _need_ it the way Desmond did.

Desmond thought most other Hobbits probably eased into their senses naturally, slowly. Quite possibly so slowly that they never even realized there was something _extra_ they were sensing at all. To them, perhaps, that was just the way the world was.

No wonder they complained about how loud and clumsy Big Folk were. If Hobbits genuinely weren’t aware of their own advantage in the matter, then everyone else (not including Elves, of course) must seem bafflingly coarse and rude.

Desmond had been vaguely aware of these thoughts and conclusions for years, but he hadn’t paid much attention to them. He always had something to do, something to learn, something to focus on. It was a bit frustrating that the other Hobbits didn’t understand his needs, and couldn’t help him develop his abilities, but he dealt with it.

Then his parents died, and all their responsibilities fell on his shoulders because he refused to let anyone take them from him. Learning how to better understand and get along with other Hobbits suddenly became quite a bit more important.


	16. Re-evaluation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond thinks about some things.

Overall, between the normal Hobbits' sixth sense and his own overextended version, Desmond would choose his. He would learn to deal with the overstimulation with time and practice, after all. He was already much better.

The other Hobbits, on the other hand, never seemed to stretch themselves much further once they settled into full maturity. It seemed a shame, but if they truly didn't know the full potential of their own abilities, it made sense. The Bounders might have been an exception, Desmond wasn't sure. He had yet to manage to see them at work in order to judge. He _had_ met a few retired or off-duty Bounders though, and their awareness seemed pretty normal for a Hobbit, so he doubted it.

That conclusion had just firmed Desmond's determination to work on his weaknesses. Eventually he wanted to have no vulnerabilities left open at all. It was stupidly over-ambitious and expected way too much of himself, but he just didn't really care. The problem with being the only one able to do what he could do, was that in a serious emergency where that particular skill could be useful, could maybe save lives, everything might depend on him.

He _needed_ to be able to rely on his abilities. He needed to be able to _trust_ himself without the risk of overstimulation or exhaustion putting him out of commission right in the middle of something. So he trained and he trained in secret, just in case.

It was a ridiculous responsibility to take onto his shoulders, and he had known it when he was doing it. He just hadn't been able to help himself.

After his parents' deaths, a lot of Desmond's priorities got re-evaluated.

He had spent so long focused purely onto his own pursuits, onto what he was familiar with and already knew, because it was easier than trying to connect with a people that even now still seemed strange sometimes. He just wasn't all that certain how to handle Hobbits other than his parents on more than a superficial level. Even his parents had loved him because they were his parents; they kind of had to. He certainly hadn't made it easy on them, though he had tried to be a good son while doing his own thing. He just... hadn't really understood them very well, nor had they him.

Now, though, it was up to him to actively reach out and make the compromises.

He wasn't interested in going out and trying his luck among the _Men_ after all. Desmond had lived more than enough human tragedy for a few lifetimes, he thought. He could stand to figure out how to live as a Hobbit.

And maybe taking a step back from trying to force a solution to the overstimulation issues by bashing his head against it would do him some good.


	17. Thinking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking critically is hard.

Eagle Vision had shown Desmond his allies and enemies, what was useful, what was important, what was safe to ignore, and what he needed to focus everything onto. It had made things _so easy_.

Now he just had this total awareness around him that came with some pretty serious downsides. Not the least of which was that instead of being able to just trust his eyes, he had to pay attention and use his own judgment, which frankly sucked. He really wished he could just look for the colors, that had been _so_ much easier. This critical thinking crap was _hard_ and he had never really been that great at it. Too impulsive, too easily deceived.

Minerva had probably made him that way on purpose. Why give your sacrificial pawn an affinity for rational thought? That was just self-defeating. It came back to bite her when Juno took advantage of it though, didn't it?

Desmond understood all that, objectively. But that didn't make learning how to think for himself now _properly_ any easier. Frankly, rebelling and running away had been the height of his accomplishments in his last life, and look how that had turned out. Honestly, he was proud he had managed that much. He knew what kind of person he was.

It had been _hard_ learning how to be skeptical and not just believe what a person told him, but he had done as well as he could. He had made a life for himself, independent, and all of his own choice. It really didn't matter how much of a disappointment that choice had been to his father. It was herculean that he had broken away and succeeded at all. And he was _proud_ of himself, for what he had managed. No matter how poorly it had ended, it had been _his_.

Everything else, everything that followed his capture? That was just fate, programmed and designed into his genes, not something worth being proud of. Even his choice at the end was what he had been engineered to be inclined to say. It hadn't been hard at all. It had _hurt_ like hell, sure, but the actual choice had been easy.

He didn't know what Minerva had been thinking, expecting him to let seven billion people burn. Of course he was never gonna choose that. Someone, somewhere, was going to be able to stop Juno, and he had to have faith in that. How she could even _imagine_ he would choose otherwise... He had heard them out, just in case, but no, in the end that choice hadn't been hard.

Well, whatever. That wasn't his life anymore, literally. Those genetics weren't his anymore. Whatever programming Minerva had made him with or that Juno had snuck in afterward had burned with the rest of him.

All that was left were the memories in his mind, but unfortunately those were still pretty damn stubborn. He may no longer be struggling against thousands of years of genetic engineering when trying to make his own decisions, but he was still working against that lifetime of memories. And that was no small thing.


	18. Timing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minerva was very good at her job.

During his struggle to adjust to the whole new life thing, Desmond had fallen back into what _he_ considered some old bad habits. Old patterns of behavior that he had spent nine years learning how to break himself out of in the first place, plus all the years before that struggling against. They were still so easy to slip back into.

He had learned just how easy firsthand when first the Templars and then the Assassins had absconded with him. It had been _so easy_ to slip back under the control of a _greater purpose_. The lure of a fight worth fighting was just... well. After seeing his ancestors' memories, it was easier to see how they had all been built along a certain personality type. All of them were far too easily subsumed by a _cause_ dangled in front of them, too impulsive by half to consider just who was doing the dangling most of the time. Not until very painful experience taught them otherwise, anyway.

Of course just as he was starting to come back to his senses, he got whammied with the end-of-the-world message. Perfect timing from Minerva, naturally. He had finally begun to realize that using the Animus was a _really bad idea_ no matter how addictive Ezio's life was. He had actually started to think about _not_ throwing his life away in a _clearly losing_ war.

Lucy had outright told him about that when making her plea, and yet he had still fallen for it. As if one man could make that much of a difference. How gullible could he get.

He had just come to the barely-there decision that they were lying to him and he should run when the reveal in Minerva's vault happened. And that pretty much blew all of everything out of the water.

He wasn't even surprised, after that, to learn that they had really been after the Apple all along. At that point it didn't even matter, no matter how much it would have pissed him off before. And they undoubtedly knew that.

When the whole world was at stake, your personal priorities really didn't get a count anymore. He knew that. It didn't make him feel any less bitter. He was just a tired bitter instead of an angry bitter, that was all. He knew how to compartmentalize.


	19. Messages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being mature can hurt.

Desmond knew how to keep his problems to himself. Usually, anyway. There was a time and place.

In the last couple of weeks of his last life, he had thought long and hard about the messages he would leave behind, should his worst expectations be proven right. There was a certain bitter satisfaction to the idea of letting it all out, of course -- but he was _doing_ all of this for a _reason_.

He hadn't known exactly what was behind that final wall in the Grand Temple, what fate Juno was leading him toward, but he knew he hadn't felt like any of this was going to end well for him. Even if it worked, even if everything went as perfectly as they could hope -- somehow Desmond knew it wouldn't end well for him.

There was something both hungry and hateful in Juno's eyes, something she tried to hide behind her attempts at impassive, regal serenity. Something that felt a lot like a predator, waiting for a prey.

So yeah. Desmond knew.

He also knew that as bitter as he was about how he was brought here and under what pretenses -- these people would probably be some of the world's only hope against whatever might be coming next, assuming they survived. Even if it was only to get a warning out, they might _need_ their full focus just to get through whatever _surprises_ were in store next.

Leaving a few petty, bitter messages to tear them down right at the worst possible time just... didn't make sense when he thought of it like that. It just made him feel tired.

The thought of actually trying to dictate hopeful and _inspiring_ messages to leave them instead, the thought of erasing the truth of himself from his life that thoroughly and giving them that kind of _permission_ to forget what they had done... Yeah it nearly made him sick, and yeah, it took him a while to come to terms with it.

But again. The fate of the world didn't leave much room for one man's sense of justice. He eventually gritted his teeth against his outrage, swallowed his bitterness, and just did the best he could.

Hopefully the Assassins would... do a better job in the future. _Lie_ and _take advantage_ of fewer people in trying to save the world.

He didn't hold out that much hope, though. They were just so very self-righteous about it all. As if the greatness of the enemy they fought justified any lengths they went to in fighting it.

He really wished he hadn't had to leave the fate of that world in those kinds of hands.


	20. Reorienting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond makes some decisions.

Seeing his mother, vibrant and vivid and not the type to let _anyone_ tell her what to do just... waste away after his father died, was a huge slap of cold water to the face.

Though Desmond had honestly recognized the bad habits he had been letting himself slip into, there had just been so much else to do and learn, so many other things to focus on in this brand new world that he had just _let_ it slip, telling himself he would focus on that later.

Desmond sat in his empty house, all his now, legally free and clear, but so very empty. He was suddenly faced with a yawning void of free time. And he kept thinking back to his mother.

He had been devoting a ridiculous amount of effort into recreating himself as a miniature Hobbit Assassin because that was pretty much what he had been programmed to do. And, honestly, in this particular world that wasn't a _bad_ idea. Hobbits were very small and soft and not naturally skilled at violence, while all the other races seemed just as brutal as any of his old world's human history.

But Desmond had failed to spare much focus for anything _besides_ that training. He had just kind of fixated on learning everything he could about his new situation, this world and everyone in it, and on getting himself back up to par to _handle_ that.

He still didn't let his skills atrophy, but now he did take a step back and decide to try to find some balance again. He never had actually managed to fully succeed at that in his last life, but he had never stopped trying. Not until the end of the world reared its head, anyway.

So Desmond would spend the next several years just trying to work himself out again. It wasn't too dissimilar to what he had done when he had first run away from the Farm, after he finally had steady food and shelter.

He had a chance to get it right now, he thought. He wished it hadn't taken his parents deaths to shock him back to it. He would have to find... something to fill this sense of emptiness in his smial.


	21. Learning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond experiments.

Desmond gave himself several months in the wake of his parents' deaths to grieve and adjust. There was a lot that needed to settle in with this new stage of his life, and he spent a lot of time thinking.

Once he felt ready to start, Desmond wasn't fully certain about where to go looking for the balance he had decided to find, but he thought those old childhood lessons he kept skipping or skimming over might do for now. His tutors were delighted when he finally sat down and allowed them to properly teach him the use of an instrument or three. At first.

The problem was that once he had the basics down to his own satisfaction, he then started improvising. He fashioned such tunes as they had never heard the like of before, and it was quite distressing for many of the more traditional hobbitry. The more adventurous-inclined younger crowd, on the other hand, loved it out of rebellion if nothing else. He sparked quite the little trend.

That was only the first of what would become a long, long line of disreputable projects that Desmond would be utterly and shamelessly unapologetic for.

Slowly, one by one, he sought out and experimented with new hobbies. Most of these he would set down easily enough once he had explored them to his content, moving on to the next idea to catch his fancy. Only a few of his projects held his attention deeply enough to stick around long term.

But while many of his projects may have been passing fads for _him_ , they often lingered far longer and caused _far_ more disruption among his young peers. Without quite intending to, Desmond became a bit of a secret figure of admiration among the rebellious Hobbit youth. It was quite the statement to be seen speaking to him publicly at market or visiting his home, though one that often came with vicious scoldings from the more traditional members of one's family. And though naturally no one would say exactly how his various projects kept spreading about around the Shire, they inevitably did nonetheless. The older, stiffer generations were all puffed and aflutter with the shame and distress of it all.

Not that Desmond responded to fuming accusations of reckless change. He simply went about his way, as calm and unbothered and mildly polite as ever, even while doing the most outrageous of things. Any complaints that were finally brought to his family heads were likewise met with no results. The Baggins family head had no foot to stand on after that shameful branch had tried to overreach themselves, and the Old Took very much did not care. It was tremendously frustrating to many people.

Desmond thought the entire thing was hilarious, to be honest. Seriously, Hobbits.

He _may_ have taken to deliberately exaggerating his last couple of projects a little, just to see the reactions.


	22. Gardening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond researches a new hobby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The following five chapters exist solely due to conversations in the comments with Imihel about Desmond's theoretical alcoholic adventures in the Shire.

One of the things Desmond found himself spending a lot of time on was his various gardens. Not just the secret ones he kept out in the uncultivated forest for his dangerous plants, either. Just like all the other skills from his last life, he still kept up with his poisons and medicines and experiments, but he significantly slowed down on those.

Instead what Desmond did now was just try to connect with that same basic joy in growing things that so many other Hobbits seemed to have. Unfortunately Desmond genuinely didn't find growing potatoes or pretty flowers all that interesting. Unless it was for poisons or something.

So he started talking to other Hobbits about how and why they gardened, trying to get a feel for what he was missing. He thought he had started to see the shape of it when more than a couple Hobbits mentioned the joy they took in growing _particular_ plants, for one reason or another. Not because of anything about those specific plants, but because they supported some other hobby at the same time.

Old Magger's scandalously young wife Delilah had her prize-winning bilberry pies, and her face shown when she spoke of tending to the berry bushes for them. The Hishbolly family patriarch Bened had won the annual vegetable competition for cucumbers with his carefully bred strains three years running, and you couldn't find a prouder Hobbit. Even the Gamgee family just across the way, who had no patience for Desmond's wild ways for all they were contracted to care for much of the land around The Hill, were nurturing an eager hope with their own breeding attempts at tomatoes.

Not all of the Hobbits who took the most joy in their gardening were like this, some just genuinely seemed to bask in the task by itself. But enough were that Desmond started thinking on what he could do -- publicly, not counting poisons -- to help him do the same.

Which was how he started up a correspondence with his mother's old friend Elrond.


	23. Seeding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not even Hobbits can make *everything* grow.

When Desmond had first sifted through the many tiny packets of carefully wrapped seeds, he had thought of cooking.

Hobbits had locked down nearly every recipe under the sun using the ingredients at their command. Innovating in that field with what was locally available was a feat _worth_ the immense amount of pride worn by those who won those awards.

However, Desmond had several lifetimes' knowledge of other possible ingredients and combinations that no one in the Shire, or this world, had ever tasted. He had no idea if he could find any rough equivalents here through his mother's old friend, but he wouldn't know until he tried. His hope was that trying might help him find something to connect with in his gardening. Growing new, unusual ingredients for new, unusual dishes -- he thought that would fit him just fine.

Desmond had found Elrond more than delighted to hear from him, as well as incredibly sympathetic and saddened by his mother's passing. He had also been more than happy to send over seeds with instructions for all sorts of exotic plants that didn't grow in the Shire. The two ended up maintaining a regular penpal relationship because Desmond hadn't expected the guy to be so open to talking with him and certainly wasn't going to let go of an outside contact who _wasn't Gandalf_ now that he had him.

The problem came up when Desmond tried to grow those seeds. There was a _reason_ those plants didn't grow in the Shire.

Not that Desmond didn't manage to make them grow anyway -- he was a Hobbit, after all. Only a few of the species Elrond sent him refused to thrive at all, and Elrond had warned him that those probably wouldn't due to special environmental requirements.

Unfortunately, just because Desmond managed to force most of them to grow didn't mean he could get enough production going to reliably _cook_ with. Not for most of them, anyway.

There were a few exceptions that did surprisingly well -- and one that actually did so well that Desmond started worrying about invasive consequences. That one he ripped up and kept only to restricted planters within glassed-in greenhouses after that.

Those handful of successes he did, in fact, experiment with in his cooking and have a good deal of fun with. But it wasn't what he had envisioned.

He ended up with three greenhouses and two gardens devoted to plants that required a ridiculous amount of work to keep alive and would still never produce enough to be useful as food sources.

But it seemed so wasteful to just give up on them. No one else in the Shire had these plants. No one else had tasted them. There had to be _something_ he could do with them, that wouldn't waste all the work he had put into growing them.

Which was when his years as a bartender peeked their head up.


	24. Honey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond pollinates some plants.

Alcohol was useful for so many things, when you thought about it. One of them, was making use of relatively small amounts of exotic flavors that otherwise would never be properly appreciated.

There were other ways he could solve this, he was sure. Making teas perhaps. Or incredibly expensive candy. But once he landed on the idea of making alcohol, he knew that was what he was going to do. Not because he knew how. But because he didn't.

Desmond had been a bartender after all, not a brewer. Neither he nor any of the lives he had lived had learned the craft. Which meant this entire thing would be an experiment from start to finish, and he had _no_ idea how it would turn out.

It was all very exciting.

He was not expecting the honey.

Several of his more delicate plants needed pollinating at very specific times in very specific ways. The rest just needed a _lot_ of it to ensure any seed at all actually formed. It was more efficient than anything else for Desmond to simply acquire his own beehive and learn how to handle the thing.

As a side effect of managing his tiny crops so carefully, what flowers he did coax from a particular species often all happened at almost the _exact_ same time. This was good for pollination, but unexpectedly resulted in very distinct visible sections inside the small hive where the honey from those particular flowers was laid down. It ended up looking a bit patchwork.

Desmond couldn't feed the bees purely on the flowers from his exotic crops, of course, there weren't nearly enough at any one time. He had planted some simple clover to cover the deficit, and partially covered that area when he needed the bees the focus on other flowers.

Because any Hobbit knew the flavor of clover honey _very_ well, it made it very, very easy to pick out the specific flavors of his struggling crops mixed in with it. Which were, of course, unique among all the many delicious honeys the Shire had to offer.

Various alcoholic possibilities for his tiny harvests had been popping into his head ever since he had first thought of it. Tasting his exclusive but very, very small batches of various honey varieties, of course Desmond just added mead to the list.


	25. Apprenticeship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond did not sign up for this.

When Desmond had decided to learn brewing, he hadn't anticipated just how hard it would be to get anyone to actually _teach_ him. It might as well have been some secret family art for how closely some Hobbits guarded their stills, it was ridiculous.

He did a _lot_ more spying than he felt was anything like sensible before he finally convinced an old curmudgeon to share her knowledge. And even then Desmond was half convinced it was only because old Marl had no immediate living relatives and her more distant kin were uninterested in the art of brewing alcohol.

Hobbits took family recipes _way_ too seriously.

As her apprentice, Desmond spent the next nine years sweating under her pinched frown. He had _not_ known he was signing up for that, but he couldn't turn it down once he was accepted because he was never getting that knowledge otherwise.

There were some logistic difficulties, as she lived too far for him to trek over every day, he had too many responsibilities to just move in to her place, and she was far too stubborn to move to his, and he had _not meant to sign up for this_ , but they made it work.

At the end of it all, she snorted and pronounced him barely acceptable, booted him out of her smial, and that was that.

With a shiny new certificate registered at the Mayor's, Desmond was now officially recognized as a proper Brewer. Not that he couldn't have brewed whatever he wanted before -- there were plenty of families with their private stills in the cellars, after all, and they shared their products with whomever they pleased. But Desmond had a reputation.

If he wanted his own products to be trusted, if he wanted that stamp of official approval on them, then Desmond had needed to go through the official apprenticeship. As grueling as that had been.

It really wouldn't matter how unique-tasting his stuff was, after all, if everybody thought it was because it was poisonous.


	26. Reception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond serves some alcohol.

Desmond was unsurprised it took his brews quite some time to get off the ground. To start with, his first _several_ batches weren't even worth tasting, and he quietly disposed of them, hopefully without anyone knowing. Some of the more experimental ones couldn't have even been used to make good cleaners.

Eventually, though, he worked out his brewing recipes, and began producing drinks he wouldn't be ashamed to let someone try. There was still a long way to go before he could call himself _good_ , but he was getting there.

That was the point he finally let himself pull out tiny bottles of his work when offering refreshment to guests. This wasn't one of his usual "scandalous" hobbies, after all, but a properly apprenticed and certified alcohol, so he could bring it out in "proper" company. They still sniffed and declined more often than not, of course, but no one could claim he was reaching above himself.

This way, when a few guests did test his alcohol and found it _very_ unusual, he had all the proper, official documentation necessary to back him up and calm them down. Nobody panicked at his weird vintages, and interest slowly grew.

There were questions, naturally, at just _how_ he got his unique flavors, but he only shared just enough to spike the interest even higher. He had no plans of giving anything away to the self-righteous little fusspots who had made it such a _pain_ to learn in the first place.

He did carefully share his seedlings and cuttings out, but only to the Hobbits who had _not_ been jerks to him. They were not in the majority. Most of them were younger than him.

Oddly enough, there was almost as much, if not maybe _more_ , interest in the teeny tiny jars of unique honey varieties leftover from his mead attempts.


	27. Wanderlust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond plans a trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter that exists only because of discussions in the comments with Imihel.

At thirty-eight years old, Desmond started to get a little stir crazy. His parents had died at a very young age for Hobbits, leaving him with all the responsibilities of an adult at only twenty-one years old. By Hobbit standards that was around... twelve or so.

Only the fact that Hobbits _were_ so traditional about certain things like inheritance and respecting others' property had allowed Desmond to keep the smial.

He hadn't let their loss or his new obligations crush him, but it did mean that his half-formed thoughts of going off for some adventures of his own like his mom got put aside. He was just far, far too busy taking care of everything his father had left him to indulge in that sort of daydreaming. He redirected his energies to his hobbies and projects instead; things that he could do in the Shire.

At thirty-eight he still hadn't come close to perfecting his alcohols yet, having some trouble getting the flavors he envisioned to come out in the brewing. But already a few of his more successful experiments were gaining some notoriety.

That fact was the excuse he went with when he finally broke and started trying to figure out exactly how he could make a trip out of the Shire without coming back to complete disaster. It was only proper to deliver some of the products of his labor to the one who had helped make it all possible, right?

So Desmond would be going to Rivendell.

Eventually. Once he figured out how he could without everything falling apart into ruin.


End file.
